China manned moon trip by 2020

Report: China manned moon trip by 2020
CNN ^

BEIJING (AP) -- China plans to land a human on the moon by 2020, the country's chief space official said in comments broadcast by state television.

"By 2020, we will achieve visiting the moon," said Luan Enjie, director of the National Aerospace Bureau. Luan used a verb that specifically describes a human act.

Luan said that would follow the launch of a probe to orbit the moon by 2007 and an unmanned lunar landing by 2010.

China's once-secret space program has released a stream of such disclosures following the Oct. 15 flight of astronaut Yang Liwei on the country's first manned space voyage.

"We will focus on deep space exploration. The first target selected is the moon," Luan said Thursday.

The broadcast on a channel of China State Television that is directed at foreign audiences said Luan spoke at a national forum on science and the humanities. It didn't say where or when the forum took place.

The space program is a key prestige project for the communist government, which launched its first satellite in 1970.

The government said earlier this month it would probably launch its second manned space flight within two years, carrying a two-member crew. Officials also have said the government plans eventually to send up a permanently manned space station.

But until Luan's comments, officials had denied having plans for a manned lunar landing. They insisted that, in contrast to the U.S.-Soviet space race of the 1960s, China was moving at its own careful, cost-effective pace.


We should have a nice moon base up there by that time! Lets hope so.

The US should unleash private companies to work toward building a private moon base first. Just as the XPRIZE has proven that 2 dozen paths to success are better than one path to failure (NASA), many paths to the moon are better than just one or two (China and NASA).

I say if a private association establishes a moon base, they lay claim to ownership. I wonder which of the 25 XPRIZE teams is interested in establishing the first continuously occupied moon base? Or do we let China or NASA screw it up?

But, imagine if the Xprize team that sent their guys (and gals!) up there, and suddenly they lose funding or whatever, or something happens, their sued, etc. And don't have enough money to get them home, or even resupply the base?

Uh, i know you guys need food... (Potable water can be taken from ice caps, and oxygen obtained by electrolysis of that same water...)
But... uh.... we don't ACTUALLY have enough money to get back up there... so, umm.... make do with the moon rocks!
I mean that would REALLY STINK!

Though, really, I think the moon would be a VERY good place to go and set up a base. With the ice caps for water/oxygen/hydrogen (Could always use the hydrogen as a fuel!) just bring along some plants for food/ partial CO2 scrubbing... and you're good to go!
There is still gravity, so you wouldn't have AS MANY problems as with staying in "Zero-g".
The moon would be the easiest place in the solar system to just go up, and start a little base that could be VERY self suffecient.

But, in short, it probably wouldn't be COMPLETELY self-suffecient... so re-supply would be necessary.... I think ifeams teamed up, they could even kick China's butts to be the first there.

LordHatrus:
With excuses like those, the automobile, computer, aircraft, financial services, travel industries would have never been built.

If mankind is to go back to the moon and stay, it will be because we can do it profitably. That is why private industry must do it.

If the Chinese or US go there, it will primarily be to establish a military presence.

Nicely said.
(But remember, when space became military, it was an all out race to get there)

Reply to traveler's post.
I think a moon base is not for the near future, atleast 30 years away...

Before a private funded organization can do it, it will have to do plenty of research... China will only "visit" the moon in 2020.. a base on the moon is way more complex.. 30 years sounds far, but in development and research time it's not far at all...

I hope some rich people and organizations will work toghetter and write history with a moon base in 10 years or so... but I just think it wont happen that fast.

Sigurd
http://hhboard12.free.fr/Sigurd/index.html

International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG) meeting is Hawaii has just issued the "The Hawaii Moon Declaration". According to Steve Durst, head of Space Age Publishing Company, the purpose of this Hawaii conference is "to see people back on the Moon within the decade."

The declaration is produced here in its entirety, courtesy of Space Age Publishing Company:

"The Moon is currently the focus of an international program of scientific investigation. Current missions underway or planned will lead to the future use of the Moon for science and commercial development, thereby multiplying opportunities for humanity in space and on Earth. We need the Moon for many reasons: to use its resources of materials and energy to provide for our future needs in space and on Earth, to establish a second reservoir of human culture in the event of a terrestrial catastrophe, and to study and understand the universe. The next step in human exploration beyond low Earth orbit logically is to the Moon, our closest celestial neighbor in the Solar System."

"Declaring this, we note large gaps in our understanding and knowledge must be addressed before the Moon can fully serve the noble purposes we identify. Many nations are conducting or planning lunar missions (ESA - SMART 1; Japan - Lunar A, SELENE; China - Chang'e; and India - Chandrayaan 1) that offer an opportunity for international cooperation fundamental for long-term public and private development and science. We strongly support the continued development of these missions. However, more knowledge is needed, requiring more complex capabilities than are now planned, including the first landings of spacecraft on the Moon since the Luna and Apollo programs of the 1960s and 1970s."

In short, we are going back and if the governments of the world will get out of the way, we will get there more quickly.

It seems the moon is getting really in the spot lights lately, I guess my post above saying "30 years" was kinda maybe wrong
Posted myself a topic from a news message on cnn, it seems bush will go for it and not let China take the US leading position

Sigurd
http://hhboard12.free.fr/Sigurd/index.html

If we go back to the moon it will be to stay there(Meaning a base!)Then we can use the moon as a second home to jump over to Mars!

Just imagen how cool it would be to have 3 worlds with humens...

"Hey dad I just came across something intrested on a website hosted on mars, it's located at mars:http://history_x-prize.com"

And also space vehicles will be needed just to transport people between the worlds, space stations and ships

Sigurd
http://hhboard12.free.fr/Sigurd/index.html

I can't imagine how painfully slow it would be to access a website hosted on mars.

Sorry, I know that is not the point. It would be great to have humans on multiple planets.

Actually that's a good point. I've read that the planets have already been given their own internet designations. I think the way to do communication between the planets would be to just have servers on Earth that specialize in keeping updated caches of extraterra sites that you could log into every now and then for updates. No real time transfer of info, but at least the info would already be downloaded somewhere on Earth if it's more than 45 minutes or so old.

that seems sensible, but really, how long would it take to transfer the data, light speed lag between earth and mars is only a minute or so. if you requested data from a site hosted on mars it could then send you the entire site for your computer to access at will. given the fact that banwidth will not be an issue by that time, even if website was huge, once your request could go from earth to mars and the data could go from mars to earth you could access the entire site with out a problem. also, odds are that the website would have its own server, maybe even a pc. leaving a pc on the whole time doesn't take that much energy in the big sceme of things, and that wouldn't take up much bandwidth assuming that bandwidth continues to increase at the rate it has. distributed networks are much more powerful and efficient than big servers dedicated to one task. if each person that wants to have a website available to the solar system can host it from their home and then have requests for data from it processed and sent through the satellite system it'd be alot better and cheaper than huge servers and data storage caches here on earth, at least i'd think so.